Learning

Always have a ready defense for the hope within you, says 1 Peter 3:15. What is that defense?

Some Christians will tell you they believe God’s Word, and he is God, and that settles it. But this kind of argument is no defense. It isn’t even logical. It presupposes the very thing it sets out to defend.

Growing up in a variety of churches, I had the chance to hear diverse perspectives. What is faith? Why should we have faith? Some people told me it was wrong to ask too many questions or to have doubts. Others said questions and doubts were part of the process of taking an idea seriously. It’s not bad to doubt, if you work through that doubt and find the truth.

Here are my top 10 Christian resources for weekly reading. They are the kind of sites to sink your teeth into and really get to know.

I’m not endorsing all of the particular views, but I do endorse the quality of the writing and the usefulness for orienting young leaders. I place them in order of how much time I myself spend reading these resources.

A. W. Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

Our worship of God comes from our understanding of who He is. And where does our understanding come from? From spending time absorbing what He has told us about Himself: absorbing Scripture. Absorbing—not merely reading. We need God’s Word inside us!

For the good, the bad, and the uncomfortable, go to the Old Testament. Because it’s largely a narrative, the Old Testament shows cause and effect—of every kind. You can trust it to tell the juicy parts.

I want to show you some match-ups I discovered. It’s a set of revealing comparisons of those who got it right and those who didn’t.

I found two principles:

1. Why holiness matters.

2. How people become holy.

I’ll share these principles at the end. But see if you can find them yourself in the following comparisons: